


Take me Away

by Margot Sirine (Margonica)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drabble, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margonica/pseuds/Margot%20Sirine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The idea of the Away Guide himself belongs to Sergey Lukyanenko. Everything else is mine, and the universe is different.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Take me Away

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of the Away Guide himself belongs to Sergey Lukyanenko. Everything else is mine, and the universe is different.

In our childhood, we used to like playing the Away Guide.  
There was a legend (was there, though? I've never heard it anywhere but from you): it says that somewhere there is a person whose role and nature is to lead Away, to give others new lives and new paths; and if your life becomes really impossible — you can find him and go Away.  
We liked to play that. You took my hand and told me where you were taking me, and I told you what I saw there. Sometimes the journeys would lead to nowhere; sometimes I would wish fiercely it had all been real. At times, I used to lead, too, but you were better at that, and you loved it better as well.  
We have grown up since then, and we've nearly stopped playing the Guide. It was not that we've become too adult and serious for that — the matter was, we were perfecting our skills, and the play was beginning to look more and more real, and the moment came when it began to frighten us. We just understood one day that we might never return.  
But I have always known one thing: if I feel really awful, if I don't see any way out — I can call you and ask: "Please, take me Away."  
And I did use that privilege. Four times you have blindfolded me, and four times you took me Away from my life, and there was no moment in my entire existence more tormenting than returning back after that, to the four walls that were called my home. But it was that torment that gave me force to go on. I just couldn't suffer what had been my life anymore — and so I left homes, people, jobs and cities. I broke everything and took some totally new path. And you were the only one who somehow stayed with me every time.  
Four times you helped me to get rid of all my life and begin a new one. But you have never asked me for anything like that — until now.  
"What?"  
"Take. Me. Away."  
Something weird happens to my breath and heart rate. My heart missed a beat, that's what they write in the books. I hit the ground running, not even trying to explain myself before my boss or the students awaiting for my lesson. Whatever. No time just now. I don't even notice the way: I only notice that your door is unlocked.  
I barge in, not even caring about taking off the shoes. The state of your place can hardly be worsened with a little mud anyway. How you have spent the last few days can only be guessed.  
It's only when I enter your room that you stand up towards me: blowzy, red-eyed, straight as a cane, and (by the way) stone cold sober, though I did notice a cognac bottle on the floor.  
"He has died," — I can't even recognize this cracked voice and these colourless intonations. — "He has died. The husband found out and killed him. They came and… told me."  
I seat you back on the bed, then I crouch on the floor near and light a candle. I gulp shortly.  
"What do I look like?"  
"You are him…" — I wait patiently, and with struggle, overcoming yourself, you continue speaking. — "Like I remembered him. You… he has not changed a bit. Like he was, ginger and dishevelled, and the freckles… and you are beaming. Even more than… before."  
"Let's go."  
I puff out the candle. I take you by the hand and lead you out — in your home flowery dress, as you were, only blindfolded.  
You follow me obediently, like that ideal child which only exists in the imagination of some specially naive parents. And when I order you to talk — you start talking.  
You apologise. You say it's all your fault; you describe what you must have done and how, and what you are feeling now, and so on, and so forth. At first, your speech is cracked, but gradually your voice strengthens, and the monologue drops down on me like a waterfall of phrases that must have been living long in your head. You are speaking.  
I listen in silence. And then, when the flood dries out, I say:  
"Look how far we've gone. What do you see here?"  
"Have we? We haven't gone anywhere. All these grey blocks, so many of them… It's all the same, only worse, and that blood on the ground…"  
"It will all end soon", I promise with a nearly real cetainty in my voice. "See? There's sun there, in between…"  
And so we go on. And before long I realise: it's all right. All's well, it goes as it must, and you shall never return. I can feel the direction, I know that it's there that we must go — away from the dull tower-blocks, out, into the distance, towards the air. And you can finally see the sunlight, and you feel the wind.  
I ask no more questions. I listen to your monologue as if it was a long fairy-tale, and I go forth. The stuffy city of ours would not let us go; it continues winding and twisting, it makes us stray about and return back. But I am patient and persistent — and I just can't stop moving or turn back anymore. I am being washed out — Away from here, further, to the exit. Noose after noose I untie the reef knots of the filthy streets, an unwillingly they give in and fall to our feet.  
And after we, stepping over some metal construction, face the clear horizon — I take the blindfold off your eyes. I'm not a Guide anymore: I'm just as driven as you are.  
And so I breathe out the humid air and leave myself to the hands of the Fate.

Sometimes everything should be cast away just for the life to be possible. I guess I must have had something in the "before", but nothing is left, and nothing will ever return. There will be nothing in the world anymore, save the road and your hands, and the everlasting moist wind.  
The Fate is leading us. Two sparkling metal lines show out of the grass, going ever together, like you and me. We follow the way shown to us: every line is a little narrower than a foot, just so we can stand on; the distance between them is just ideal to hold hands, and, crossed with grey ribs, they stretch endlessly to the horizon. My hand holds your hand, and nothing shall ever make me drop it.  
Everything else is meaningless.  
And that clanking rattle behind is not worth a single drop of our attention.  
Not even a single turn of our heads.


End file.
